UW Board of Trustees

The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees voted Friday to raise student tuition by 4 percent next school year. The move is in line with a policy adopted by the Board last year to review a possible increase like this annually.

Last week, the Board of Trustees at the University of Wyoming approved a 5 percent tuition hike for the next academic year—and 4 percent increases for each year after that. Most of that extra revenue will be used to fund employee salary increases.

Some employees and students question the move.

Faculty Senate Chair Ed Janak says the raises are much-needed, but he isn’t sure tuition hikes are the right idea.

The University Of Wyoming Board Of Trustees is considering a variety of proposed tuition raises in order to retain faculty members. On Friday the board is expected to vote on two proposals. The first would increase tuition by five percent for academic year 2016. The second would allow the board to increase tuition by four percent every year for four years.

UW’s Vice President for Administration Bill Mai says the university has lost key members of its faculty in recent years due to financial concerns and has had to move money from other areas to retain current faculty.

Voters roundly defeated a proposed Constitutional Amendment that would have allowed non-residents to serve on the University of Wyoming’s Board of Trustees.

The Wyoming Constitution specifies that anyone serving on the Board of Trustees should be eligible to vote in the state. The amendment would have allowed the Governor to appoint up to two non-residents to the 13-person Board.

University of Wyoming trustees and the state’s top lawmakers are sitting around a table in Casper. On today’s agenda: the relationship between the Legislature and UW. Get-togethers like this mid-July meeting don’t happen often.

"This is the first time, and I’ve been around politics quite a while," says Senator Eli Bebout, who has spent more than 20 years in the Legislature. "Where we got with the Board of Trustees, the President and members of the leadership and other key legislators to talk about these things. It’s the way it should be."

Wyoming state legislators want more communication and coordination with the University of Wyoming.

The UW Board of Trustees met with several House and Senate members in Casper this week to discuss the relationship between the Legislature and the school. Senate President Tony Ross says the meeting was a good first step, but lawmakers need to play a bigger role in the future.

This weekend, the University of Wyoming’s Board of Trustees interviewed four candidates to replace President Tom Buchanan, who will retire this summer.

The search for a new UW president was originally confidential, to allow candidates to maintain security in their current jobs, but a judge in Laramie ruled that the University must release the names of its candidates to the public. In order to stay on schedule, the Board of Trustees obliged, but not before telling candidates the search would no longer be confidential.